Uber’s rider ban extended to South Africa

Ride-hailing service Uber announced last week that it will refuse service to passengers with “persistently bad feedback” – and that has now been expanded to include South Africa.

Up until now, few people knew that Uber users are rated by the drivers after a ride, just as the drivers are rated by the passenger.

If you behave badly for whatever reason, the driver will give you a low rating.

In a statement last week, Uber said that a new “rider-quality system” will be implemented to keep everybody safe.

“Uber will soon begin notifying a small number of riders who have consistently received bad feedback from drivers that they must improve their behaviour or they could lose access to the Uber app,” it said in a press statement.

That shift in rider-quality system will now also be implemented in South Africa pretty soon.

General Manager for Uber Sub-Saharan Africa, Alon Lits, confirmed the move.

“We have recently updated our community guidelines, extending the same behavioural standards to riders that we have for driver-partners and we will be notifying a small number of riders that their behaviour needs to improve or their access to the app could be removed — which is already done with drivers.”

The company is taking a tiered approach to bad behaviour, as unruly passengers will at first receive a warning, a one-week suspension and if things don’t improve ultimately end with the user’s app access being revoked completely.

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